Anticipatory analysis and its alternatives in life-course research. Part 1: Education and first childbearing

Jan M. Hoem and Michaela R. Kreyenfeld
Additional contact information
Jan M. Hoem: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Michaela R. Kreyenfeld: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

No WP-2006-006, MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

Abstract: Procedures that seek to explain current behavior by future outcomes (anticipatory analysis) constitute a widespread but problematic approach in life-course analysis because they disturb the role of time and the temporal order of events. Nevertheless the practice is often used, not least because it easily produces useful summary measures like the median age at first childbearing and the per cent permanently childless in various educational groups, defined by ultimate attainment. We use an empirical example to demonstrate the issues involved and to propose an alternative "non-anticipatory" research strategy, which, however, does not equally easily provide summary measures. (Keywords: anticipatory analysis, conditioning on the future, fertility by educational attainment)

JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2006-006.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2006-006

DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2006-006

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Wilhelm ().